


Henry X Lizzie

by BadOldWest



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, The Shadow of the Tower
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, i am trash for these two, maybe not in that order, they fall in love and then there's smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOldWest/pseuds/BadOldWest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, would you?”<br/>She almost choked on her coffee. <br/>“What?”<br/>“Would you still want to get married?” <br/>He watched her carefully as she tried not to sputter in defensive indignation. <br/>Lying was never her strong suit. <br/>“I mean, it’s not like there aren’t perks.”</p><p> </p><p>Elizabeth of York, a young post-grad, finds herself under the employment of Henry Tudor. As his fake fiance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lizzie woke up somewhere unfamiliar, yet not. 

And the light surrounding her was killer for her hangover. 

She blinked at her surroundings, head swimming, but all she could see was a well lit bedroom, lots of windows, and a comfortable but masculine bed. 

The last place she’d ever expected to wake up. 

Her panic instincts set in and scanned her surroundings once more. What time was it?

Her phone was charging on the bedside table. Not with her pink charger though. Someone else’s.

She grabbed in frantically to check the time, a few texts from her mother lighting up. 

**In case you forget, a car is coming for you at nine. Remember to thank him for me.**

And almost immediately following. 

**Please do not drink so much the next time you are at a public event.**

_ Drinking, public event, her mother? _

“Elizabeth...don’t panic. I’m sorry.”

The voice, like the place, she recognized, but was the last she expected. 

“Henry?”

She sat up, blinking in the bright light. As if this could get worse, she’d been passed out in the bed of Henry Tudor. And even more terrible, he was dressed for work and looked like he was eager to get going. And she was keeping him waiting.

Even though she wasn’t quite sure how she wound up there to begin with. 

A female instinct kicked in to survey damages; the worst possibility would have had a few telltale traumas and indeed she felt woozy but altogether fine. Honestly it didn’t even occur to her to suspect Henry of anything sinister, not with all the chances he had with her mother trying to force them together. 

But still it was unnerving to wake up in a strange bed. 

She was stunned into silence, even more than her usual. 

“Your mother was worried about you getting home safely last night, so my mother volunteered my apartment. I was leaving as well, and it was only across the street from the concert hall. It seemed convenient and you were...well...”

All at once it hit her; the party, the drinking, their mothers conspiring in the corner.

“I’m…” she squeaked.

She covered her face with her hands. 

“I am so sorry.”

“It’s quite alright. This is only the worst part because I didn’t want you panicking after waking up in my apartment and tossing a lamp at my head.”

He handed her a mug of coffee, matching the one in his other hand. 

She offered a tense laugh, a courtesy as a polite guest more than anything else, when every thought in her head was a cacophony of screaming. 

Of course the one formal event where she got pissed and made an ass of herself, he was at. She hadn’t even wanted to go. Her mother insisted on keeping up appearances in the face of near economic collapse. Glide along on reputation in the face of ruin, heads held high. 

It was a normal enough event, the throngs of distant relations asking prying questions about her love life; at twenty, she wasn’t expected to still be single, apparently. Not that it made her bitter. She just dove into the champagne with a determination rivaling her mother’s, and found herself in the tiniest bit of blackout. 

And wound up in Henry’s apartment the next morning.

She took a sip, a tad bit too sweet, but that was only because it was generously laden with cream and sugar. 

“You mother said to douse it in milk and sugar,” he said as she considered the taste. 

She winced. “My mother told you how I take my coffee?”

“Only because I asked.” he supplied. He didn’t seem to be teasing her. Maybe this would all be worse if he was. 

“I’m so sorry.”

“You already said that.” He was staring at her mug like he made a mistake. 

She realized she may be offending him by not drinking it, so took a lengthy pull from the sugared drink. 

Her phone buzzed at the bedside table. 

**Henry was so sweet to let you use his spare bed. Be polite!**

“Everything alright?”

The bitter expression on her face slipped off. She hadn’t meant for it to be there. 

“Spare bed?”

It clearly wasn’t a guest room they were in. His closet door was open, revealing his wardrobe. While she was satisfied enough to get glimpses of the finished looks he wore to events in their eclipsing lives, she was very curious to see the disassembled pieces organized on their racks and shelves; to see the parts before he put them together. 

There is nothing worse than a crush that won’t end. It wasn’t like she could even reference a conversation they’d ever had. It was just two lives in approximation. Sharing a world but not any experiences. There was were parallels, a few overlaps, but never crossing. 

Long story short; it’s not like she knew him. She just always wanted to. 

He had an air of mystery, not carefully tailored like the pretentious boys she’s been to university with, just a reserve that made him hard to read. Never unpleasant, just quiet. He wasn’t orchestrated to look a certain way, his curly black hair was combed back for a day at the office, his suit was freshly pressed, but there was nothing pretentiously official or intentionally haphazard in his appearance. She’d seen tabloid shots of him taken where his facial hair was scruffy and the hair was wild, puffing on a cigarette and cloaked in a battered leather jacket, but he wore them with glasses and old t-shirts, nothing designer or posed. He felt real, to her, in his image. She’d seen how publicity warped some of her friends, pictures taken at the right moment, features in magazines traded for and bought. He never seemed that way. Despite his reputation, he was just Henry. 

He finally looked sheepish, like a break in the politeness finally ebbed away to be caught in a lie. “I took the couch. It seemed easier to explain away the whole...mess…”

Great. She made him take the couch. As if it wasn’t imposing enough to take up a guest room, she slept in his bed. 

She  _ slept in his bed _ . 

She blew a tuft of fussy blonde hair out of her eyes. “Is there a limit on how many apologies I can make in one morning?”

“They do lose their weight when they’re all thrown at me at once.” He smiled as he said it. 

“I…” she shook her head to try and scatter the million buzzing thoughts, “Blanket apology. For this morning. For all of this. For the whole thing.”

“Apology accepted. It was no trouble. You’re quite a creative drunk, so it wasn’t a miserable experience for me. 

He laughed, but his face fell about the exact time hers did, as though his reaction was merely a frame of a second behind hers.

“Oh, I shouldn’t say drunk, I should say... _ indisposed _ , I believe was how your mother put it.”

She ducked her head to stare at the comforter over her legs. Steely blue. Why did they have to have this conversation with him fully dressed and her…

She glanced down at herself. Wrinkled silk. He didn’t take her out of her dress. Thank god. 

She wanted him under the blankets with her. In the same vulnerable place. 

Her shoulders twitched in protest.  _ No. Stupid thoughts _ . 

“No, you’re fine, it’s just I didn’t mean to get...drunk last night.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“No it’s just...I hate those sort of things. I never know what to say.”

To her surprise, he smiled, softening in the early morning sunlight.

“I feel the same way.”

“It’s just a lot of people and it gets overwhelming, and my mother wants me to hone more of a reputation with these kinds of people for...connections I suppose. You can never have too many friends in these circles. Ugh. I’m rambling, ignore me,” she rushed out, taking a long sip of coffee to shut herself up. 

“Honestly I was jealous of how much fun you seemed to be having after all the alcohol. Might start using that trick myself.”

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing.”

He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “Of course not, I’m sure.”

“And I could have just gone home, normally, I think this was more a strategic move of my mother.”

He took a sip of coffee, slinging his jacket over his arm. “Ah. Well, my mother all but volunteered me for the responsibility. Not that I mind.” he added quickly, before she’d even had time to feel guilty. 

“They still want us to get married,” she smiled her hurt pride away. 

It was a joking sort of conversation between their mothers at public events. One that endured since Elizabeth’s birth. 

“Indeed they do.”

“Thank god I outgrew that phase, so we can be the reasonable ones.”

She smiled primly, feeling confident in how she reigned in her awkwardness. A girl who did not used to have a crush on Henry Tudor would definitely say that very thing.

His brow knit together in confusion.

“You had a phase?”

_ Oh no. _

“When we were young,” she said dismissively. “Ages ago. I forgot about it until just now.”

Not entirely a lie. He’d been sent away to school in France when she’d barely started high school, and he’d only just returned now after graduating to take over the family business. So she hadn’t thought of him often, but the occasionally Christmas card photo or sighting at a holiday party was enough to fuel a crush. He was becoming more present in public life because of his newfound power in his father’s business. A former rival of her father’s, which was now swept in the dust. 

“Well, would you?”

She almost choked on her coffee. 

“What?”

“Would you still want to get married?” 

He watched her carefully as she tried not to sputter in defensive indignation. 

Lying was never her strong suit. 

“I mean, it’s not like there aren’t perks.”

He chuckled, and she realized it was the first time she’d actually made him laugh. Not a polite one, a genuine one. 

“It’s just strange to talk about this with you, after the weekend I’ve had at my mother’s.”

“Oh?” 

She immediately knew she didn’t sound as noncommittal as she wanted to. 

“Just some family PR,” he glances down at the mug in his hand, “I need to be in a stable relationship for some good press. According to her, I should be married with two kids and nine on the way at this point in my life.”

“My mother’s the same. I mean, she wants me to be carrying those nine children.”

She smiled and took a sip of coffee, almost spitting it across the room when she thought over her last statement.

“I don’t mean yours!”

He flinched at her urgency, but raised his eyebrows in an amused way.

She tried to amend each of the miscommunications, only digging herself deeper.

“Anyone’s children really. According to her. Not anyone’s. But someone like you. Not that’s she’s referenced you.”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m sorry. I have a hangover. I’m just...out of it.”

“you never answered the question.”

“What?”

“If you still wanted to get married.”

“Oh.”

Did she?

She set her coffee down on the night stand.

It wasn’t something she’d let herself indulge in. Much. 

She was so young though. It’s not like she was sitting around waiting for a husband. But faced with the option to be married to Henry, handsome, good-natured, successful Henry, she wasn’t exactly going to turn up her nose. But she also didn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction. 

“Why, are you asking?”

She lost her poise, and her cheekiest smile was suddenly sprung across her face.

“Just asking you what you think.”

“I haven’t given it enough thought, really.”

He stepped closer, into the murky sunlight. It could only be 8 O’Clock, maybe even later. Didn’t he have to get to work? 

But he was sort of smiling at her like she amused him, and she finally released a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. It even came out as a bit of a laugh. 

She liked him. She realized this now. All this time admiring him from afar and she was able to actually know now if they could carry a conversation. She hoped she would have a chance to prove herself in a less compromising position. 

He smiled faintly, still looking at her. The sun was warming her shoulders. She didn’t know what to make of him, so close, so alone together. 

“Don’t you have to be at work?” she finally broke their gaze, sliding carefully out of bed to not upset her skirts too much. She did a nervous little spin looking for her shoes and purse. 

“I…” he glanced at his watch and turned pale. “Oh. Yes. It’s alright.”

She slid on her sparkly heels. Oh god, she reeked of a walk of shame. Which was even worse because it was all shame, and no post-sex afterglow. The world was unfair, really. 

She grabbed her phone off the night table and checked the time. It was 9:15 and the driver hadn’t texted her. 

“I’m making you late.” she combed her hair way with her finger. Oh no. Serious bed-head. 

A miracle, a text from her family’s driver. One of the last remaining members of staff. The York’s weren’t poor by any means, just living below the means they were used to. 

“I’ll let you go,” she said, waving her hand clenched around her phone, “driver’s here. I’m sure I can’t be sorry enough about all this. Thank you so much for taking this on.”

He shrugged, sort of smiling at her. Only sort of. 

“I’ll see you again soon, surely,” he said as she brushed past him. 

She called over her shoulder down the hall, trying to get out of there quickly.

“Oh yes, our mothers will make sure of it.”

“Lizzie?”

“Yes?”

He shook his head and smiled, speaking over the lip of his coffee mug.

“Front door’s the other way.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

“So?”

Elizabeth had a rude awakening, for the second time that day, as her mother yanked the covers off her body. She groaned and curled into a ball, wanting nothing more than to wake up when her body was not reacting violently to the amount of alcohol consumed the night before.

“So?” she parroted, draping an arm over her eyes.

Her mother stared down at her icily. She didn’t have to look at her to know. She could feel it.

She pushed herself up on her elbows.

“So I woke up in a stranger’s apartment this morning. To my surprise it was mother who put me there.”

Her mother had the patience to at least look amused.

“Henry’s no stranger. I’m sure he was a perfect gentleman.”

“I assumed you were perfectly sure, I could only imagine the risk you would be taking if he wasn’t.”

“How was Henry?”

_We now have two children and nine on the way_ she almost answered, smiling to herself. The smile was enough for her mother, who arched her brow in a pleased manner. Namesake alone was the most she shared with her mother. Elizabeth longed to be less easy to read like the all-business woman who raised her. Instead she was sunny and playful, and uncomfortable when things got too serious.

She tried to hide her smile, but the damage was done. Her mother could feel victorious.

“We get on.” Elizabeth shrugged, “I mean, we only talked for a minute after I woke up.”

“He’s quite grown-up, wouldn’t you say?”

“He is several years older than me…”

“Margaret and I were talking about how lovely it would be if you two became friends again.”

“I sure the topic has been discussed between the two of you.”

When one family has a name and the other family has money, they dovetail each other for obvious expansion. Coming from a family that only had a name at this point, she knew what her mother wanted her to look for.

Henry had all of what her mother wanted for her.

All that was stacked against her wanting Henry.

Nothing is worse than admitting a crush to her mother. Her mother took the infatuation in her hands, examined it until she was squirming, and then crushing any unworthy candidates in a way that brought shame to her face. It was worse with anyone who passed the test.

Her mother’s approval was what drove her to keep to herself, otherwise every spare moment she was spent with the young gentleman her mother was hounding her to, arranging dinners with his parents, sending her daughter out into his line of sight at all costs.

So Lizzie kept quiet about her feelings, and set her mind into finding the best worst romance novel of all time. Her room was brimming with water damaged paperbacks from local bookstores. All romance was experienced neatly between two bodice-ripping covers. Ironically, of course. It’s not like she was taking it _seriously_. It was enough drama to fuel a heady rush and could easily be abandoned for reality at the drop of a hat.

A buzz disrupted the contents on her side table. A precarious stack of well worn paperbacks toppled to the floor.

Her mother swiped her her phone, ripping it out of the charger.

“Mother!” Elizabeth lunged for her phone, but only stumbled forward over the lack of equilibrium she had over her still raging hangover.

Her mother held out her phone after reading it carefully.

“Perfect. Henry wants to get coffee with you.”

“That’s not for you to know.”

Her mother finally seemed to catch wind of her distress. She sat primly on the edge of Elizabeth’s unkempt bed.

“Elizabeth, it’s important that you’re kind to Henry.”

“I have never been rude to him.”

“No, what I mean is, Henry could be someone that would be very useful to you in your future. Do not isolate yourself from this relationship.”

_It is a truth universally acknowledged and all that jazz._

And of course it was romantic to think that could solve all her problems, that she could be swept away and saved from her family’s ruin and everything that had happened to her brothers and her Uncle and all the things that did not make life romantic at all. It was a nice fantasy, that she could marry rich and just happily ever after-coast through the rest of her life.

It was romantic to think about but that was certainly why it was only in books.

Her mother took her hand, giving it a squeeze and offering a pacifying smile. The look that always made Elizabeth so eager not to disappoint her.

“I’ll get coffee with Henry.”

Her mother kissed her brow and left the room, having gotten what she needed.

Apprehensively, Elizabeth glanced down at her phone.

**You left your purse at the apartment. You’ll probably want that back. Meet me at Kaffeine this afternoon?**

He was sparing himself the madness of coming to her house. She flopped back onto her bed.

**Sure.** She replied. **Whatever works for you.**

  


A few hours later, showered and feeling less like a freshly dead person, Elizabeth found herself in a booth of an elegant coffee shop. At least it wasn’t a greasy Starbucks. She was wearing a light blue day dress with a high neckline, her hair messily braided over one shoulder. She felt like herself again; sober, not clad in a silky little dress, is a sunny place with lots of windows.

“Elizabeth?”

She glanced up and was caught off guard to see him, despite meeting him.

Her nerves fluttered at the sight of him, still dressed for work, taking the seat across from her.

At least now it looked like he wasn’t just doing her a favor. Of course he could hand her the purse and leave immediately after her, so everyone in the shop knew he wasn’t there for her.

He placed it on the table, a sparkly little clutch, but didn’t stand up to go. Instead, he seemed to get more comfortable in his seat.

She bit back a smile.

“Sorry to have something else to be sorry for.”

She slid the bag onto her lap. Honestly she would have been fine never seeing it again, but was charmed thoroughly by the gesture of bringing it to her.

He shrugged good-naturedly.

“Do you want something to drink?”

She tapped the white mug already present on the table.

“Already started without you. Sorry”

“Sorry,” he echoed, “You say that a lot.”

He had his glasses on, and she liked him infinitely more with them on. Brown round frames. He looked smart without being an affected hipster about it.  

“It’s been a hellish day and I’ve done a lot to be sorry for in the past 24 hours.”

“Still. There’s something about a woman who can just breeze through that kind of 24 hours unapologetically. You’re a pretty enough girl, you should be able to pull off the disaffected hellion.”

_Pretty enough. I’ve had nothing to go on for twenty years and now I’m ‘pretty enough’?!_

“Please,” she took a sip of coffee because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Honestly. You made that fundraiser about a million times more entertaining than it would have been. I just thought it was just a detour in a day in the life.”

She twisted her mouth up in an abashed expression. His eyes softened.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“We’ve just talked about me quite a lot.”

“I…” he tangled a hand in his curls, scratching his head, “I suppose we have.”

“How was work?”

“Well,” he placed his hands on the table, fiddling with an empty packet of sugar that she’d abandoned on the table. she could practically see him counting them. Four sugars with her coffee. He’d gotten it wrong that morning.

She hadn’t even thought of it until she saw him adding it up.

Wait, was she reading him? He was wearing it on his face, but she never _read_ anyone.

“Grueling. The company is kind of a disaster, after previous management.”

He seemed to tense after he said it. He was sweet enough to try not and hurt her feelings.

“Yes,” she held up her mug to hide the smile she couldn’t keep down, “I’m sure my uncle left it that way.”

She could only imagine what inheriting that nightmare could be like.

He gave her a sheepish little shrug, resting his face in his hand.

“It’s not that bad. Completely fixable. I’m just the type to micro-manage, so I can’t separate trying to fix all the issues at once, and not just focus on the glaring problem.”

“Oh! Did you want coffee?” she blurted out. It just occurred to her he hadn’t ordered anything at the counter.

“Hm? Oh, no, I’m fine.”

“Sorry, I was listening before that,” she said firmly, embarrassed to have seemed like she wasn’t paying attention. “I feel like there are worse faults to have.”

He didn’t meet her eyes, but smiled in his palm and shook his head a little.

“I can be quite a prat.”

“I find you very pleasant.”

He caught her eye this time.

_Pleasant?!_

Irony aside, crappy romance did nothing to teach her how to talk to men. They were either incredibly non-verbal or eloquent to the point of eye-rolling. Most of the source of her amusement was the climactic make-up scene where all misunderstandings were clarified and eternal love was declared. Of course to then be swept up bridal style and ravished with missionary sex to solidify the union. Utter bullshit.

“Why did you get so drunk last night, if you don’t normally do that sort of thing?”

She bit her lip.

“I just don’t like being around all those people when I don’t know anyone.”

“You know me. You never really spoke to me until the fifth or sixth…”

“I realize that, I just...have a hard time getting to know people. Obviously I dealt with it the wrong way. My mother makes me anxious, and I felt kind of stranded with her.”

He nodded, really looking at her in a way that boys her age didn’t. She didn’t feel like they were navigating her to the point where he could benefit. He was just listening.

“You and I are a lot alike.” he said quietly.

She felt strange. No bosom-heaving or anything ridiculous. But nice.

He glanced at his watch.

“Shit. I have to get going. We should do this again soon, though.”

She started, watching him get all gathered up and ready to go.

He looked different, she only then realized, then he had a moment before. He had relaxed into his chair and talked to her like a normal person. He seemed very formal, getting up to go.

She stood to say goodbye, and his lips brushed her cheek.

She’d been plenty familiar with a “business kiss”, where she leaned in and air-kissed the cheeks of an acquaintance in a sort of reserved familiarity, but the point was not to touch the other person. she’d seen Henry business-kiss plenty of stodgy old ladies, and she had to accept plenty from just as tempting men.

So she knew that Henry touched his lips to her skin on purpose.

He pulled away with a private little smile, and she felt something alight in the space between her lungs, illuminating her ribs.

With no nonsense wasted, he was gone.

And just when she’d really wanted him to stay.

On the way home, she felt this was reason enough to treat herself, so she popped into her favorite used bookstore. Her quest was respected there. She could leave with a stack of ancient Harlequins for mere pennies. It was her favorite place in the world.

She swung herself to the dusty front counter, slapping a hand on the familiar wood grain.

“Barkeep,” she called out to the light in the back room, “I request your finest trashy historical romance novel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone please tell me I'm not fucking this up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!

_ “She watched him from across the crowded ballroom, skirts of her gown hitched tightly in her hands so she could move quickly through the crowd. She still had yet to see his eyes. The eyes she’d heard were the most beautiful in the land, piercing sapphire orbs.  _

_ She was so busy craning her neck to try and find him again in the crowd, his broad shoulders and impeccable grace, that she didn’t notice the crowd parting around her as someone approached.  _

_ It was him.  _

_ He held out a hand to her, asking her to dance with a rugged smile, and she felt a powerful surge in her chest...but also... _ **_there_ ** _.” _

_ His eyes danced, and she was suddenly fully aware that he could tell the effect he had on her. She was his. Despite the yards of silk there was nothing keeping him from her wet desire... _

Elizabeth dropped the book with a groan and covered her face in her hands, dissolving into giggles. She had to grab onto the rickety ladder for balance, that was just as sturdy as everything else in the store. The slanted floor creaked and the bookshelves looked like Atlas holding up the weight of the world on their thin, peeling little shelves. 

“What's so funny?”

She could scarcely breathe, let alone tell the bookstore employee (and close friend) Daisy, what she'd just read. 

She scuttled lower on the ladder, slipping the book back in its place on a high, forgotten shelf. Daisy stopped her before her dismount, however. 

“Where are you going?”

“Just back to browsing. There’s a promising 80’s lot of Christian romance I’ve been meaning to sort through.”

While Elizabeth had been venturing into more smutty territory (ironically, as a part of her quest, and as a joke; in that order) there was nothing quite like a cheese Christian romance novel. 

Daisy’s smile turned mischievous. She didn’t give the blonde any room to step down from the ladder. Her glossy brown curls were practically quivering with excitement. 

“I read something about you today.”

Elizabeth paled. Her family name quite nearly arranged her in the lens of a microscope. She could only imagine what level of disarray wound her up on some trashy tabloid with the back of her skirt accidentally tucked into her tights. 

“With a boy.”

Elizabeth felt her stomach flipping.

“When were you going to tell me you went home with  _ Henry Tudor _ of all people?”

_ Oh god.  _

Daisy continued chattering on about the virtues of the well-known young mogul, and was clearly enjoying the rise it was getting out of her innocent friend. 

“You can’t actually be so scandalized by what happened. You’ve been treating this shop as your personal smut peddler for  _ months _ .” Daisy concluded with a smirk. 

Elizabeth swatted at her friend. They’d only met because of the frequency of Elizabeth’s visits to the shop and Daisy’s curious nature. 

“It’s not like that. I’m researching.”

“Yes yes. The worst romance novel of all time. A human barometer for pandering tastelessness. Just because you find something bad doesn’t mean you have to find the worst of it. I’ve eaten plenty of bad pastries but that doesn’t mean I’ve dedicated my life to reviewing the very worst.”

“There is a romantic element to the fact that something so bad could get published. It reassures one of eventual success. If some idiot can sell a half-crumbled, greasy custard for consumption to other people for money, imagine how my delicious, flaky, decadent desserts would do.”

Daisy raised her eyebrows. “I hope all the unintentional freudian sex allusions is because Henry banged your lights out. You needed it.”

Lizzie cringed, covering her face in her hands. Suddenly it felt like everyone in the shop was looking at her.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“That’s not what it looks like.”

Daisy strutted over to the front counter and brought back a slimy-paged, cheap gossip newspaper. She presented it to Lizzie with a careful expression, like she was trying to break the worst kind of news. 

It was definitely bad. 

At least not front cover, but prominent enough to be a problem. The article pictured Lizzie, sagged against Henry’s body, scantily clad in a silky dress not meant to be as ruffled as it was in that moment, as he was trying to carefully escort her across the street. She gazed up at him, drunkenness thankfully hidden by an unabashed glee. They were clearly walking towards...something. They’d only had to go a block and even then someone managed to get a picture of it, to exist forever. 

**Tudor inherits York Company and York Heiress’s Companionship**

_ Stupid fucking title _ . 

From the look on her face, Daisy seemed to realize it wasn’t funny anymore. 

“I’m sorry Lizzie. It just seemed like a nice change of pace for you. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No it’s just...I didn’t know about it until just now.”

She raked her eyes over the page for damning buzzwords that would give her mother a field day in strategic maintenance of public opinion. There were a lot of allegations, some cruder than others, and she didn’t like the tarty lilt it was giving her character. Especially the suggestion she was getting involved to keep the family’s foot in the door of the company. 

“I...I have to go.”

Daisy clucked sympathetically, pulling her into a hug. 

“It’ll pass. It always does. As if it’s ever pulled you out of your quest. You’re a girl on a mission.”

Elizabeth nodded stiffly, but squeezed Daisy tighter, seeking comfort she would not be receiving from her mother when she got home. 

“People use your name to sell papers. It has to mean something. It’s power, love.”

Daisy gave another reassuring squish before Elizabeth pulled away. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Elizabeth stumbled past her friend with a muttered goodbye. Once outside, she slid on her biggest sunglasses, which were stowed in her purse for emergencies like this. She ducked her head and set on a straight path home. 

 

Her mother was, predictably, waiting for her when she got back to the apartment. They’d had to sell most of her father’s property, but maintained the London apartment and a small vacation cottage. Moving out of the house she’d been raised in had been hard. Coming home to a nearly empty apartment with her mother waiting for her was harder. 

Her mother was seated at the head of the dining room table, arms crossed, poised to strike.

“I assume you’ve heard of my notoriety.”

She curtsied to mock the formality her mother forced on her. But how could her mother act angry? This all happened on her suggestion to go home with Henry. 

“I have nothing to say to you.”

Elizabeth flinched, but her mother continued in a different tone. 

“This is something you and Henry have to handle. It’s not my business to meddle.”

_ It’s your life’s work to meddle.  _

Lizzie held her tongue, but wished her mother had a bit more to offer in the vein of “I’m sorry these people are exploiting your mistakes and making up lies about you.” 

Her mother almost managed to not disappoint. 

“It can be unpleasant, what the classless deem entertainment. You are better than this gossip. What’s important is what you do with it.”

Of course. Publicity opportunity. 

Elizabeth held back the urge to retch, and slid into the hallway to go to her room. 

She kicked off her shoes, dropped her bag, and collapsed onto her bed. It was strange how defeated she’d felt, cuddled up in quilts, so often in a matter of days. 

She didn’t even have the energy to try and distract herself. She was thoroughly out of commission for the day. 

She abruptly woke hours later to her phone ringing. It was at some point in the evening, but her sleep schedule was so reversed it could have been six months later for all she knew. 

She answered it without thinking. 

“Elizabeth?”

Her pulse picked up considerably. “Henry?”

“I assume you’re aware of some of the tabloid coverage we’ve received as of late.”

“Um. Crap. Yes,” she pinched her furrowed brow with her fingers, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s not an issue of what you did. We both know how these things get out of hand. While I usually elect to ignore them, I was calling to ask if you’d like me to step in for this case, on your behalf.”

“What?” 

“I’m asking if you want me to deny any rumors, officially, if you wanted this put to bed.”

_ Bad phrasing, Henry.  _

“Oh. Well, I’ve had to ignore worse. But if you wanted to maintain that it was strictly platonic, I totally understand. To the press, I mean.”

“I’m not bothered by the speculation.”

_ He’d still get laid as much as he wanted even with the rumors of entanglement with a disgraced York family member.  _

“Then I’m not particularly bothered by idle gossip. These matters pass pretty quickly. Handle it however you want.”

Worst case scenario he told everyone that it was sexual. She could use the fun kind of scandal these days. But she also trusted Henry wouldn’t go mouthing off to some tabloids about being with her. Not only because his character didn’t reflect that kind of disloyalty and self-aggrandizing, but because he had much better options to pretend he slept with. 

She shook away the unpleasant bitterness that had settled over her mind. She had no business in whom Henry actually took home after fundraisers. She was surprised with herself for resenting anyone for a relationship she was not involved in. 

“Handle it however I want?

“Well, I assume you’re prepared for this sort of thing,” she couldn’t bring herself to point out  _ people think we’re fucking and I don’t know how to disagree with a pleasant thing like that  _ “I trust your judgement in how you want to handle it.”

“Well. I appreciate your trust. Actually, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you in relation to the gossip.”

**_What._ **

Was he going to sue her for defiling his character? Filing a restraining order? Oh dear god, what had she done now?

Lizzie often felt the harbinger of messes. Her mother was such a neat and sleek person, in such control, her parents a handsome and successful couple. And then she came along. And brought all the mess that cursed her family to this life. 

Again, she flinched and shook her head. It was not her fault. It was not her fault.

“I am afraid I’ve startled you off.”

She jumped back to reality at the sound of his voice.

“Oh. Not at all. I’m just wondering what you mean.”

“I’m not sure I know what I mean at this point. Can you come over? I’d like to talk this over you.”

Talk meant sex. Didn’t it? She was so rusty with these things. Wouldn’t a booty call be something more explicitly obvious? 

Did she want it to be a booty call? Would it be easier to convince herself they were just friends if she wasn’t so caught up in the baggage of a stupid crush?

“I’ll bite,” she confirmed quietly, trying not to give too much away in her voice. 

“Come over at 8?”

She was silent a moment, trying to find a reason to say no. There was nothing burning at the of her mind that held her back. She trusted her gut and it was telling her this would be awkward, but safe, as always with them. 

“I’ll be there.”

  
  


_ _


	4. Chapter 4

Lizzie nervously re-crossed her ankles for what felt like the hundredth time in the longest half hour of her life. 

It was a quarter til nine and Henry was late. To his own apartment. 

A housekeeper had let her in and explained that he was running late, returning every fews minutes to make sure, really make sure, that she wasn’t in need or want for a cup of tea or glass of water or three course meal, anything, anything at all. 

She was in the small sitting room in the front hall of his apartment. She didn’t want to encroach any further than that without him. She felt so strange, being there before he got home. Like she was in some Wonderland reality, or wearing a silly hat.  _ This is not how it should be _ whispered a scolding voice in her mind  _ something is not right about this.  _

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?”

She jumped, a bit fuzzy with confusion. 

“Oh, no, I’m fine...I’m sorry, what is your name?”

The older woman brightened a bit. “Molly. You can call me Molly.”

Elizabeth wasn’t sure how to read her apparent excitement, so the housekeeper accommodatingly continued; “I must say I’ve never had one of Henry’s guests even bother to ask for my name.”

What wretched manners. Lizzie always possessed a kind of quiet boorishness, fumbling her words and actions in an anxious way around people in the service industry, fostered by her bad habit of spending a lot of time on her own. It made her appreciate their kindness instead of ignore it. Her voice was always high and pleasant around family friend’s staff and even cashiers, where it was more the fashion to be unphased by their presence and completely unaffected. She never felt quite comfortable following that standard. 

“Thank you Molly,” she gave a small smile, because she didn’t want to act like she was condescending to ask for the woman’s name. What she did wasn’t really anything at all. That didn’t make it any less rare. 

Elizabeth fidgeted again, nervous that Henry would have those kind of people around his apartment, not bothering to know the name of the person cleaning up after them. 

“Elizabeth.”

She jumped to her feet, finding Henry rush in with red cheeks, still dressed in a suit, leather bag slung over his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d just be getting home from work…”

“I’m the one that’s late,” he replied, laughing breathlessly. He leaned in and gave her a brief kiss on the cheek, all business this time.

She chewed her thumbnail, forearm practically shielding her body. 

“So about the reporters…”

He interrupted, ushering her into the kitchen, offering a courteous hello to Molly, who seemed thoroughly pleased to see him before rushing out of their way, and shrugging off his jacket as she settled onto one of the high stools at the kitchen island. All of this flowed seamlessly under his hostly orchestration, and she was a bit intimidated by how everyone was where he’d put them.

“Drink?” he asked.

“Um, yes please. Molly offered but I figured I should wait for you.”

He shook his head, “You didn’t have to do that. My schedule is too unpredictable. Next time around, get started without me.”

_ Next time around?! _

She scolded the invasive thoughts, jumping up at the mere chance of his further attention. 

_ You may have a crush, but you will be an adult about this. Be an adult.  _

“What’ll you have?”

“You look like you could use something strong. Just give me what you’re having.”

He raised his eyebrows, reaching for a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and holding it up with just enough incredulity she was tempted to swig straight from the bottle. 

_ Nope. Bad idea.  _

He pulled two glasses with ice, turning to her.

“Let’s talk in the living room.”

She took her drink from him and walked by his side. There was something very grown-up about being handed a drink a man made you, in his own apartment, and then choosing your own seat on his living room furniture. It felt like playing house, but sleeker. Less fussy and traditional. She felt equal to him.

“Again, I can arrange a statement to maintain that we aren’t dating. Mum’s handled these things before. Not with me…”

He waved a dismissive hand. 

“I would never want you to think I’d be ashamed by such assumptions. No one could be. I am deeply flattered by the presence of rumors, however…”

The whole thing reeked to her of  _ You’re a nice girl, but… _

Lizzie tried to suppress her disappointment. She swirled the ice in her glass, nodding but not meeting his eyes. 

Henry continued “I was going to propose that we not dismiss these rumors...rather…” for a moment he grappled with words, “encourage them.”

She edged towards the arm of her chair, practically curling her torso around it with a lean of her arm. 

“I don’t exactly follow.”

“It’s beneficial to both of us. Maintaining your family’s hand in the business, or at least an alliance, gives investors and the public a sense of security that nothing is drastically changed. What better way to make it clear your family gives its support?”

_ What’s left of it… _

Lizzie finally locked eyes with him, trying to pin down the flightiness of his phrasing. 

“Are you asking me to pretend to date you?”

This had taken a turn. 

“What I’m asking can be a number of things. There are two ways we live our lives, privately and publically. But what my point is that we assure those in our public lives that we are involved, yes. To mutual benefit.”

There’s friend with benefits and then there’s political dating, Henry.”

He flinched a little, and she withdrew a little bit too. 

“But we wouldn’t be dating…” she clarified, trying to reach a common ground of logic.

“We wouldn’t have to, no.”

“So we can just pretend to date, because it’s good for both of our families. And the business.”

“It’s good for a lot of reasons.”

His vagueness was driving her up the wall. He could just say he needed her for a reason, he didn’t have to properly tiptoe around her feelings if his intentions were so gloomy. 

“You could have just asked me to dinner, Henry,” she joked, trying to recover from how morose she’d grown.

He responded by adorning his face with a similar grimness.

“Unfortunately, Elizabeth, I’m asking for something for a bit more of a failsafe than a flirtation. And I wanted you to know of those intentions, without feeling deceived afterwards.”

She bit her lip, nodding. 

“Am I allowed to think on it?”

“Yes. This is a bigger commitment than dinner.” He tried to get her to return a smile, but she couldn’t. 

He could have been cruel, and led her on. Sold some newspaper. Stirred some rumors. At least he gave her the credit of playing the game along with him. 

How could she tell him, with that logic, that there was an easier way than this? How could she tell him that she would do everything in her power not to screw this all up if they could try to go about this like normal people. How would she put to words that her head was fuzzed with some abnormal sentimentality, that for once in her life, she wanted to risk something safe and sacred and actually put herself out there and try?

It was crazy. Here he was with his crazy, rational proposition and she was there trying to bring in unfounded and unrequited feelings. 

Her eyes slid along the familiar face of this friend, this strange person who was known to her and a complete mystery. She would forever try to knit those contradictions into something she could rest on. 

She would do it. She would go forward on this ridiculous plan because it meant more Henry. 

She just wouldn’t say yes immediately, because somehow that seemed even more mad than anything else that just happened. 

 

Elizabeth did not leave her apartment thinking she would enter it, for the second time that day, feeling even more hopeless than the last. But she did. She didn’t even bother turning on the front hall light, just took a moment to collect herself in the dark.

He hadn’t even bothered to ask her out. Was that what she’d hoped? Immediately she couldn’t help but laugh cruelly at herself. What did she think would happen that night? He’d be there waiting for her, hair disheveled and distraught when she came through his door and thrown himself to her feet, asking for a chance? Ridiculous.

Lizzie was not a romantic person. She refused to be. But she’d had hopes, not even realizing it until they were dashed. 

_ I was hoping we could have done this under more natural circumstances, but maybe fate forced my hand. _

That didn’t seem too indulgent to want. Not after all the drivel she’d read, rolled her eyes at, mocked. Not the spoonfed modern courtship of the questions you’re supposed to ask until you eclipse enough to the things you’re supposed to know about a person before you consider yourself theirs. 

And yes, they liked each other. But that didn’t mean the only reason he was giving her a chance was what she could do for him. That wasn’t what she’d wanted. 

Just herself going forward, but not alone anymore. 

There was a light from the living room. Her mother sat on the couch, no sign of books or television entertaining her. Just sitting in the half light alone. 

“How did it go?”

“Henry,” she sighed, “thinks we should go along with the gossip rumors because it gives people a sense our family is allied with his leadership.”

“I had a feeling he would see it that way.”

Elizabeth flinched as if slapped. Why was everyone suddenly seeing her as a pawn?

“And what if I feel differently?”

“Well,” her mother pointed out with a slippery sort of cold in her voice, “You are a charming, capable girl. It’s not as if you aren’t gifted enough to turn this in your favor. I would proceed with caution in your next steps. Henry is yours to lose.”

Elizabeth could feel the threat in her mother’s words, feel it in a way that sent a chill running through her. 


	5. Chapter 5

“So you’re going on a date with him?”

Elizabeth flinched, trying to re-bury her head in the bookstacks. 

“Kind of…” she said meekly. 

Daisy let out a low whistle. Lizzie retracted her head and glanced down to see her slightly awed expression. 

“What a catch you’ve made.”

Lizzie groaned, her moud souring not only from the falseness of this statement but also because she hadn’t told Daisy the whole truth. The arrangement was so strange, she knew Daisy would hit the roof over anyone offering her anything less than the whole of his heart, still throbbing, yanked out of his chest and put on a silver platter. 

Lizzie would have liked to be a bit more like Daisy sometimes. Her friend could go through life like that and get what she wanted. She was stunning, Cleopatra-lined eyes and high cheekbones dusted heavily in freckles. They made her brown skin so much prettier, instead of looking juvenile like Lizzie’s did. Daisy’s appearance was just so structured and clean-cut, her curls perfect spirals and her figure neat symmetrical lines. She was confident and sharp, her evident nature immediately drawing Lizzie to her when she began working at the shop. 

She felt guilty for lying, but she really, really did not want to face the failure and shame that was, and would be, her fake courtship. It was better for everyone if very few people knew. 

She glanced up at the shelf above her. “Romance” was a genre of trial and error. Bordering on the offensive in categorizing the contents of this store’s shelves. The uncracked spines of  _ Pride and Prejudice  _ and  _ Jane Eyre _ dangerously close to a few Nicholas Spark’s novels and a well-worn copy of  _ Twilight _ . Daisy had once shown her the stack of falling apart  _ Twilight _ books they had in the back of the store, people couldn’t pawn off their copies fast enough, and a used bookstore amounted a lot of them. 

Just as vampire romance didn’t belong near Jane Austen, Lizzie felt the sinking feeling that this was not the conversation to be having in front of her either. 

She slid the pristine, untouched classics off the shelf, cradling them protectively. There was no need to involved a Bronte sister in this affair. 

“Why do you do that?”

“Hmm?”

“Re-shelve half the store when you’re here? And while we’re at it, if you are so defensive of Jane Austen, why aren’t you reading her instead of,” she clambered for an example in Lizzie’s stack of too-reads, “ _ One Knight Only, Two Knights More _ ?”

“I’ve already read them. Besides, there’s pleasure in the unchallenging and melodramatic. Some people watch a lot of reality television. I just happen to want to find the holy grail combining romance, mild erotica, and horribly under researched historical fiction.”

Daisy shook her head appreciatively. “Have you told your new boy toy about this quest?”

She felt cold. All reminders of Henry made her want to break out into a panic. She was betraying Jane Austen. But Lizzie was not Jane Eyre. Lizzie was not even Elizabeth Bennett. She was the kind of person who was going to see this strange, horrid little arrangement out.  Lizzie could not force herself to be excited about the new realm of possibility.  _ It’s in your best interest to be seen with him. It’s both your best interests to be seen together _ her mother’s chiding voice ran through her head. 

Still, she smiled bravely at her friend. “He’s not my boy toy. He’s just Henry.”

 

 

And that evening, she found herself at dinner, very publically, with Just Henry. 

She felt horribly overdressed, not because of the the rest of the fashion choices of the restaurant, but because it felt unnecessary to go to someplace so upscale even if they had actually been dating a week. Which they hadn’t been. So she felt like she stuffed into a dress and taken to mass at someone else’s church. 

She took her seat across from him, too afraid to slouch and get comfortable. Half as though she expected the women on the other side of the room flipping over her bowl of fettucini and announcing  _ They are not actually dating, she’s a fraud!  _ As though that was how the world actually worked. 

“How was your day?” she smiled brightly, trying to balance her actual interest with how interested she should seem if they were dating (actual interest was about the same level, but she had signed herself up to have to think about things like this).

A look passed between them, gauging each other. She was offering him the reigns.  _ How normal do you want this to be? What kind of couple are we?  _ And thankfully, his answer seemed to indicate that nothing was to change.

“Stressful. Glad to have a break to see you.”

Her head spun for a minute, only to notice the woman one table over finally stopped looking at them, satisfied with how sweet they seemed.

“What happened?”

“Just need to maintain the confidence of long time investors with through new leadership. It’s a partnership. It’ll all balance out.”

She reached across the table, squeezing his hand.

“Well, you have my confidence.”

It was a posed gesture, one that she knew that lovely girlfriend of Henry Tudor would say. However, she wished she could have made it seem more real, because she did have faith in him. He was always a smart, focused person, even as a boy. His success was inevitable. She could even picture him struggling.

He smiled back, about as genuinely as she had been in saying it. He glanced down at her wrist as she pulled back. 

“You had this charm bracelet, when you were younger.”

He could have asked her to slide off her panties and hand them to him under the table, and she would have been less surprised to hear that order instead of this simple statement. Maybe that was the sort of thing she was expecting, with their “arrangement”. She almost did it just to throw him off just as much as he did her. 

“What?”

He was looking at her, and eye contact made her retract a little bit. It was an anxiety thing. She could not stand to be looked at like that. It made her whole body coil up. 

“You used to wear it every day. What happened to it?”

“Fell off my wrist into the lake one summer,” she murmured. Her surprise masked her actual mourning of the piece, a gift from her father. A spiky wristlet of gold marking little childhood accomplishments. Ballet shoes. A kite. A little gold communion wafer. 

“A pity. I remember you always wore it.”

“Quite,” she answered to her plate more than him.

She hadn’t meant to sound flippant about the loss. She was just distracted by a familiar feeling. Glancing around the room, she noticed that she wasn’t just aggravated by his attention, but by the sneaking looks and whispers from everyone else in the room. 

They’d figured out who she was. Who she was with. 

“Henry?”

“Yes?”

“Everyone’s staring.”

“I suppose they are.” He said, taking a sip of his drink. “They won’t find anything wrong with you and get bored soon enough.”

“I think they’re too intrigued.”

“What do you think they assume we’re talking about?”

“Oh...boring couple stuff.” She waved a hand dismissively. 

“Well, to public knowledge, we’ve only been seen together just this week. Someone got a picture of you leaving my apartment last night, and coffee the other day, if you didn’t know yet. So I feel like we’re not quite that boring yet.”

She almost choked on her drink. Was he being cheeky?

“What do you think that...they think,” she took a moment to sort out the phrasing, “that we’re talking about?”

She knit her brows together, trying to get read on him. He seemed to pick up on her confusion and straightened up his posture. He seemed embarrassed, when she was the one being stupid.

“They think we’re having sex right after this,” she stalled on a few of the words, but said them as an olive branch. She knew what he had been getting at before, just not why he needed her to acknowledge it. “And that we’ve been having sex all week.”

To her surprise, he chuckled. 

“Well, you’re going to have to get used to people thinking that if we continue to spend time together, and not look so morbid about it.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she admitted, “they can think that all they want to. Isn’t that why I agreed to be seen here tonight with you? That we want them to think that you fuck me?”

His brow raised in a daring sort of way, and she tucked her eyes back down to the food on her plate. 

“Do you want to get coffee in the morning?”

_ More appearances... _

“I have yoga tomorrow morning.”

He nodded, considering this. 

“Then I was hoping I could take you home from the studio.”

She parroted the same nod.

_ I was hoping I could be seen publicly with you to keep up the charade. _

Dinner finished with the same polite conversation she had gotten used to, a relationship not built up by it, but easily maintained with the right questions and comments. Work, school, family, vague memories of their childhoods intersecting. 

As they rose to leave, he took her hand. 

She could handle this.

They walked outside, somehow ending up with his arm looped around the small of her back, hand on her hip farthest from him. There were a few flashes of light, so she knew that it was happening for a reason. This was what other people would see. Henry and Lizzie, leaving a dinner date and getting into the same car. His arm secured around her body. 

He opened to door for her, but before she slid in, held onto her for a moment. She looked into his eyes and knew. This was it. They’d already had rumors about them. Now was the time for confirmation. 

She tilted her chin in a slight nod, and he kissed her soundly on the lips. She wished she could calm her thoughts enough to enjoy it, but there were too many other things happening for her to even think about how it felt. Still, the overwhelming consensus in her mind was  _ holy shit Henry Tudor is kissing me. _

The angle was weird. Her neck was craned back, the force of his lips pushing this way. He held her, but her body was open the the side, not towards him. 

She pulled her chin away a bit prematurely, and the kiss ended a bit more quickly than either party would have liked, but for very different reasons. 

Posed for the pictures. Definitely posed for the pictures. 

She smiled at him, because it was a good kiss, and maybe it could be fun, and there were definitely people taking pictures now. Accomplished, she slid into the passenger seat. She tried to collect herself in the few seconds of solitude she had when he rounded to his side of the car. 

His door slammed, and they were afforded a moment of privacy behind the tinted windows. 

She could handle this.

She glanced at him sheepishly, sorry she couldn’t play his game as well as he could. 

But he looked even more laboured than she did. He was breathless, staring out the windshield for a moment, keys clenched in his hand. He hadn’t started the car yet. 

She placed her hand on top of his, unsure how to treat him. He was the one leading this. 

He started at her touch, smiling at her as he started up the car. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other not ready to lose hers just yet. 

She could handle this. 

His finger slid under her bangle, touching the soft skin at the pulsepoint of her wrist. Her heart beat around the nerves he touched. 

_ Fuck. _

  
  


_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please post a comment on what you think! I'm still feeling a little lost and not sure if I need some directing.


	6. Chapter 6

“And arch your spine, transitioning from cat pose to cow pose…”

“So Henry’s picking you up today?”

Lizzie whipped her upside-down head towards her friend Gemma, almost losing her balance in the process. She needed to stop being so hair-triggered while bending her body in some many different ways. 

She eased into the next pose, arching her back out of synch with the rest of the class, and nodded as she slid into child pose. With her face pressed into the mat, she felt less horrible about how fake it all was. 

“Yeah,” she mumbled, glancing up at the instructor.

When she glanced to her side, Gemma was still watching her skeptically, her bunt black fringe cutting a harsh line over her raised brows. 

“Has he seen you in yoga pants yet?” Gemma whispered deviously and they proceeded into downward dog.

Lizzie flushed, or maybe it was all the blood rushing to her head. Self consciously, she tried to make her ass cease to exist, even though her body was triangulated to aim it at the sky. On normal days she was paranoid the housewives behind her had something judgemental to say about the unfortunate view. 

“No.”

“God help him when he does,” Gemma snickered to herself. 

Despite her discomfort, Lizzie had to remind herself that this was what Gemma was there for. Someone who could be out until four in the morning saturday night and yet could be awake and perfectly in tree pose sunday morning. A vicious cycle of intoxication and detoxing. She’d maintained her friendship with Gemma since childhood, and despite some brushes with the law in her presence, she felt safe around her chaotic goodness. Where Daisy could hold her liquor and keep her act together, spiritual, edgy Gemma was the counter of Lizzie’s personality in different ways. Mainly her revelry in her lack of control, not her shame in it.

Lizzie’s mother had always taught her to surround herself with people who had the virtues she didn’t. Partnerships needed counterbalancing. This led to a ridiculous inferiority complex because all of the people in her life were so vastly different to her. But she dragged herself out of bed for yoga with Gemma twice a week, and to a few parties where there weren’t anyone’s parents there, and maybe that was enough of a challenge for this point in her life. She was dreading leaving class, so as they were led into silent meditation, all the relaxation she’d spent the hour focusing left her body in an instant. 

Gemma was staring at her, rubbing her hand in the bare skin at the buzzed base of her skull. She smirked “I don’t think you’ve ever introduced me to any of your gentlemen friends.”

“If you keep it up it’ll stay that way.” Lizzie replied through gritted teeth, turning to her other side to say “namaste” to the person to her left. 

“You know I’m just curious. I can’t help it. You’re a sexually mysterious creature.”

“Stop making me sound so weird. It’s not like I’m a slutty unicorn or something,” Lizzie protested with a grumble, but she still smiled in succeeding for making Gemma laugh, loudly, disrupting a relatively quiet studio of people just trying to roll up their mats and maintaining their positive auras. 

“Maybe the three of us can go out sometime. I need someone to babysit me during Glastonbury.”

“Gem,” Lizzie rolled her eyes, “Henry isn’t going to want to share responsibility of holding your hair back and keeping your bandeau on your tits.”

“I reject your expectations of my festival-going etiquette. I refuse to be so crudely boxed in. Also, your hair looks amazing today.”

Lizzie combed her fingers through her high ponytail self-consciously. She’d straightened her hair that morning, for obvious reasons that she wasn’t ready to admit, despite them being obvious. Gemma grabbed Lizzie’s phone out of her pocket and took a picture.

In spite of herself, she laughed. Gemma kept taking pictures.

“What are you doing?”

“Posting this on your dormant instagram. You look hot. And even if it’s just to get dressed up for your little boyfriend, I’m not letting to go to waste.”

Lizzie took her phone from Gemma, shaking her head. “Please don’t scare him off, I like him.”

The photo was already filtered, captioned and posted at this point. It wasn’t a bad picture, she just tried to keep a more cultivated instagram of old books and architectural details. None of these things required her to pay for or put to hours getting the shading of her cheekbones right. No one was lining up to see her face twenty times a day. 

Gemma faked a stopped heart, swooning against the front desk as the girls made their way towards the exit of the building. “So quickly brought to passion, Lizzie love, he must be the one.”

As though God wrote the world like a teen-movie script, Lizzie caught sight of Henry at the end of Gemma’s proclamation.  _ If only. _

“Hey,” she said breathlessly.

“Hello Elizabeth.”

“Um, this is Gemma,” she motioned vaguely, “Gemma Moxley.”

“I’ve met her father at a few events. Hello Gemma.”

She was thankful they didn’t shake hands. This already felt dangerously formal for two girls just leaving a yoga class. 

“Daddy’s mentioned you before. Henry, take Lizzie to Glastonbury Festival with me. We must go together and have a grand old time.” Gemma swung their joined hands excitedly. 

Lizzie kept her eyes on the floor. No one said no to Gemma. But she also wondered who on earth had the willpower to get Henry to a music festival. 

Henry laughed. “It’s a while off, but I’m sure if Elizabeth wanted, it’d be fun.”

Gemma was satisfied with dragging Lizzie into another spiral of potential debauchery, and excused herself, much to her friend’s relief. 

“Sorry about her,” she smiled up at Henry, who threw an arm around her shoulders as they exited the building. 

“No, I’m glad to finally meet her in person.”

Gemma was a bit legendary. While Lizzie never found herself present during these incidents, there was little her father couldn’t bail Gemma out of. 

“She’s an old friend,” she excused softly.

Henry nodded, and she felt that pregnant pause again, and it was time to get acting. 

He leaned towards her. 

“I’m all sweaty,” she wrinkled her nose like a cute girlfriend, pulling away slightly. She also hoped that Henry would not kiss her because she was actually feeling very gross. 

No such luck. He laughed like a good boyfriend and kissed her on her brow, but at least a quick one. 

“Bet a shower would feel nice right now?”

His arm was still looped around her waist. 

_ Are we at the stage of fake dating where we’re having sex in your shower? _

“Heavenly.”

He leaned down to her ear.

“Then come home to my place. Use mine. We can make a day of it.”

She suppressed a shudder, but as soon as he pulled away, a cheeky smirk lit across his face, she noticed a few people with camera phones aimed at them. Of course. Pretend. 

What do you say to your fake boyfriend in this situation?  _ Stop turning me on, you’re being too good at this?  _

“Mmm,” she considered, “I don’t have any clothes at your place.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He was casual enough about it, but this was such a hard to read situation. Was she supposed to be coy? Was she supposed to throw herself at him, lathe kisses up and down his neck as they walked, yank him into an alleyway and ravish him? Or was she just looking for an excuse to do that?

Something told Lizzie that she was not supposed to be herself. But something poised. Pretty. The perfect girlfriend. But how was she supposed to do that?

He just needed to be seen with her entering his apartment. It was clear whatever happened out of view was private. It was a safe space. He wouldn’t touch her and would send her home, as always. 

He didn’t really expect her not to ask questions, did he?

His eyes were soft on her for a moment. He seemed to know what she was at war with herself over. 

“You don’t have to,” he whispered.

She took a deep breath. She would prove she was capable. That she could keep up with this, whatever it was. 

“If you want me to.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

It was supposed to be an uneventful shower. She should have known. 

But there was still something intimate about using his bathroom, standing naked under the falling water while in the apartment he held the keys to. 

There was too much in his control. She cast her eyes back to the dress she’d been avoiding. Pretty, blue, floral. Innocuous really. Just a strapless, smocked waist sundress that was stretchy enough to be forgiving if the size was off. 

Already in his apartment. Ready for her to wear. Not so innocuous. The same shade of blue he’d already seen her wearing before, as if he didn’t want to find something that clashed with her pre-existing self. 

“I’ve, uh, got something for you to wear home, if you don’t want to get into those sweaty clothes,” was the tame enough offer, and it was logical to agree with Henry.  Molly brought it out of a spare bedroom closet. Lizzie did not get to see the other contents of that room. The tags were still on, with the price strategically ripped off the end.

“If you need anything else, let me know,” Molly informed her, which seemed like too broad an offer. There was a vast window of things she could need, and it seemed like there was even more than she could expect prepared to fulfill those needs. The unseen closet. The mysterious purchase. 

It felt even more like she was being costumed, that not even his apartment was fair game, that it was just the wings of the public stage, where she did quick changes and took coffee breaks.

Completely full bottles of shampoo and product lined the front of the shelf. With some digging, she found the half-used bottles that must have been Henry’s. She popped open one of the caps, taking a sniff. Just to be obstinate, however discreetly, she used his shampoo instead. 

She felt vulnerable, Henry in the other room. Wasn’t this the part where he came to the door, unable to bear the thin walls separating him from her naked body?

_ Overcome with lust, Henry throws himself at the door, sinking to his knees, pleading… _

_ “Elizabeth, I have come to ravish you.” _

Ugh. Soap in her eyes. 

Squinting painfully, Lizzie lifted her head to the stream of water above her. Nothing was ever as sexy as she thought it would be. Here she was, naked in a man’s apartment, and he was in his office, his voice quietly rumbling from down the hall. 

She felt better from the shower. Stepping out of the steam, She wrapped a towel around herself. The apartment was quiet. His calls must has ended. 

Elizabeth was a lazy dresser. She usually wrapped herself in a towel and only realized she was still in it hours later, in front of her laptop with her hair dried messy and uncombed. So she stood, nervous for lack of distraction, in a plush towel and stared at the not-so-innocuous dress. It was pretty. It suited her. This wasn’t the problem. 

_ I’d like to be able to dress myself. If he just told me what was expected.  _

Her voice rang out into the apartment, unexpected even to herself. 

“Henry?”

The water was off, so he came to the door and knocked. 

“Yes?”

“Can you come here?”

Elizabeth hadn’t really thought this through until ehr opened the door and flinched his eyes to the floor at the sight of her. 

“Sorry,” he apologized, even though she had called him in. At least she wasn’t the one apologizing this time. 

“I…”

She sort of lost herself for a moment. She hadn’t called him there to seduce him. She wanted something from him, but wasn’t sure what. 

“I still curious about the arrangement we’ve come to.”

He raised his eyebrows, glancing up at her face but then back down to the ground.

“Lizzie,” he said evenly, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Really? I just figured you should see what you’re getting before you commit.”

She dropped the towel. 

Where did this come from? Even at boarding school, when everyone around her was naked in bathrooms and dorms, she was usually covered  _ somehow _ . And this wasn’t a washroom with her female classmates, or changing clothes with Gemma or Daisy. This was very different.

This was something Lizzie  _ did not do _ . 

To her credit, Henry did look. But he also didn’t scoop her up into his arms and ravish her on the wet tile. 

But he seemed to know she had aimed low with her words, and gave her a shrewd, evaluating lookover. 

Her hands twitched at her sides to chicken out and cover herself. She didn’t even know what she was trying to get from this. She also wasn’t sure if she was getting it. 

But Henry’s eyes, flickering over her as his face masked in a cool indifference, somehow seemed to be praising her. Her display of rebellion. Not putting the dress on for him, acknowledging that this was so strange, making him face that he may be tied to her, but this was something they were going to have to navigate and not just ignore. 

He may have wanted her then. Not at that instant, not under those circumstances, but she knew then she’d won something. 

Molly’s footsteps filled the hall. Lizzie flinched away, grabbing the dress and slipping it over her head. 

They heard her scuttle into the kitchen. Henry cleared his throat. 

“I’ll leave you to it.”

He left her, messily dressed and ashamed. 

She threw herself at her discarded jacket on the floor, yanking her phone free. 

She needed to get out of there. Clear her head. Drown in shame. 

She brought her mouth close to her phone, so no one could overhear. 

Of course, capable as always came the answer.

“Hello?”

“Daisy, I’m at Henry’s apartment, please come get me.” 

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine. I just need to leave as soon as possible.”

“Did something happen?”

“I’m not in danger, calm down. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Okay. Text me the address. You owe me.”

“One more thing…”

“What?”

“I need you to bring me something.”

 

Daisy was at the door, bag in hand in twenty minutes. Gemma lived closer, but calling Daisy always had the best results. 

“I’ll meet you at the car in five.”

Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

Lizzie squared her shoulders. Not like a powerful woman who knew what she wanted, but like a A student that had done the reading. Not ideal, but holding her own. 

“Giving him something to think about.”

Daisy tried not to smile and instead masked herself in a familiar disapproval. 

“You do that. I’ll be in the car.”

Lizzie accepted the book Daisy handed her. It was marked up, well worn, well researched. She’d asked Daisy to pick it up from her room. She slid down the hallway, cradling it, to find Henry in the living room.

“Henry?”

He glanced up at her from over his newspaper. 

“Yes?”

“I should head out. Thanks for letting me...use your shower.”

“It was no trouble. I was hoping we could...get dinner, or something.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “It’s three in the afternoon, Henry.”

He stuttered out a rushed agreement that it was a silly idea. 

“I have something for you.”

He perked up, dropping the newspaper. “A little early for gifts.”

She seized the skirt she was wearing in two hands, fanning out the fabric to prove a point. 

He shook his head. “That’s different. Your mother mentioned to me that financially, you hadn’t been treated to a lot of new clothes in a while.”

Something made her recoil, a cold heart-stopping dread. That’s what this was about. Some martyred Pygmalion situation. 

“You shouldn’t,” she replied evenly, “be conspiring with my mother, of all people, in what gestures you should be making in our relationship.”

She tossed the book into his lap. 

He paled, considerably, at the sight of a post-it-note bedecked copy of  _ Fifty Shade of Grey. _

“You know this book?”

“I can’t say I’ve read it.”

“Well, I annotated a copy for you. For good reasons. You know how he’s an older millionaire and she’s a young, sexually inexperienced student?”

He nodded up at her.

She placed her hands on the arms of his chair, leaning closer. 

“And that he lavished expensive gifts on her in return for her obedience?”

Another nod. His eyes tore down the sight of her in the dress he bought. 

“You know how controlling, dominant, and possessive Christian Grey is?”

Henry swallowed thickly. 

“Yeah.”

“Good. Don’t do any of that shit with me.”

She pulled away, grabbing her trenchcoat off the coat rack. 

You’ll see all that problematic behavior outlined in green sticky-notes,” she called over her shoulder. 

He stared at the book in his lap. “Lizzie, it’s all green sticky-notes.”

“Exactly,” she trilled, and the apartment door shut firmly behind her. 

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

Daisy was waiting in the car, as promised. 

“You going to explain what’s going on?”

“I uh…” Lizzie fumbled for her seatbelt, “I made a mess of things. Henry wants to take things slow but can’t really draw the line where he wants it. So I was pushing him. It backfired. But I think we have a lot to talk about, next time I see him.”

“Hmm,” Daisy mused, looking at something on her phone, “Vague.”

Lizzie slid her eyes to the window, unsure why she was lying in the first place. Maybe because Daisy was too rational to get herself into a fake relationship with her childhood crush, all because the idea sounded nice. Daisy could have any real relationship she wanted. 

Daisy let out a low whistle. 

“Lizzie Love, you haven’t by any chance been on instagram lately?”

“What?

She glanced at her friend’s phone. On her feed, the picture of Lizzie that Gemma took. She looked closer, and it had over two thousand likes. About two thousand more than she ever got. And all in a few hours. 

“Oh my god.”

“Do you think it’s because…?”

“Henry?” Daisy tossed her a knowing look, “You really didn’t think it would change your social media presence if you were strutting around town with Henry Tudor?”

Lizzie pulled out her phone. Her instagram notifications were exploding in a pixelated mess in from of her eyes. No one she knew. She hadn’t checked the app for weeks before Gemma had posted for her, because there wasn’t any need. 

“So Henry’s...fans?”

Daisy seemed to shake her head. “No, read the comments. They are there for  _ you _ .”

Elizabeth twisted her mouth in her worrying face, and experimentally went to the upload button on the app. She scrolled through the unassuming library of photos she’d taken that week, and chose a boring, bland one of a mug of coffee she’d sent Gemma for some reason. 

She posted it.  

Lizzie watched her friend slide on her sunglasses and start up the car. 

“So. Fifty Shades. He’s not going to use that book as reference to tie you up?”

“Nope. I gave him the annotated copy.”

Daisy let out a low whistle. “I remember that sleepover. Didn’t we just write “fuck no” a million times in the margins?”

“I lost count.”

Lizzie smiled faintly. Gross romance. Toxic as fuck. She’d established as the other end of the spectrum of her relationship with Henry, but what else had she outlined? This was such a strange negotiation.

“You don’t think it’s weird, that we’re fighting already?”

“Not at all. It’s early on, you both are just figuring out what you want from this.”

Lizzie flopped back against the car seat.

“What should I want from this?”

She glanced down at her phone. Thirty notifications. 

This was too crazy.

Daisy noticed the test working over her shoulder, whistling a single impressed note. 

“I can’t tell you what you want. But you see that? That’s power. Don’t be stupid about what you bring to this relationship. It’s a lot. You guys are this projected, stately power couple for a reason, and it’s not all Henry. So don’t go into this thinking he’s the only one who deserves to set the standard.”

 

Henry texted to get coffee three days later, after a series of polite check-ins to reassure that she hadn’t ruined anything with her actions, but certainly had no evidence that she had endeared herself to him.

She accepted. It was easiest to meet him at Fleur, which wasn’t to far from where he was working that day, but that meant she’d have to take the tube, not walk. 

Despite the madness through the rush hour crowds and the hot-faced shame of trying to read  _ The Rebel Rival _ in a crowded train she made it on time and had time to jot down notes on the book for her quest. 

Despite being a regency era erotic drama, there was often mention of hoop-skirts. So she was filing that one in the genre of Questionable Historical Accuracy, but having not reached the advertized climactic sex scenes, she was getting a sense it would be swiftly re-classified to Problematic Sexual Politics. 

She’d meant to wait until Henry got there to order, so much to her surprise she saw he was bringing a steaming cup over to her. 

She smiled as he stood by her table for a moment too long without sitting down. Right. Public. 

She half-stood, only enough to plant a grateful kiss on his lips. The one he’d been waiting for. 

She took a sip even as she reached for the sugars. No need. Four sugars. He’d remembered. 

Outside the giant picture window at the front of the cafe, a bespectacled man around Henry’s age opened his arms just in time to catch a girl violently hurtling into them. He lifted her off her feet, her feet kicked back because she knew he was going to catch her the minute she started running to him. Her hair was streaming down her back, tangled in his arms. It was the smallest, grandest collision Lizzie had ever set her eyes on. The moment way have been strung after a meeting two minutes or two years ago, that excitable re-connection, but no matter the span it clearly was too long for them to have been apart. They were very happy to be together again. 

Elizabeth found herself caught by that image, properly hooked, and one glance at Henry told her he had been watching too; not because she was, but because it also caught him. 

“Quite romantic, isn’t it?”

He smiled, tucking his gaze behind his glasses. 

“It is.”

“Suppose they missed each other very much.”

He nodded. “It would seem so.”

“Must be nice, having that kind of love.”

He stared at the lip of his mug.

“You don’t think it’s nice?” she amended, watching the force of the embrace ebb away on the other side of the window, easing into their two bodies supporting each other, tucked safely into one another even on a crowded street. 

Lizzie and Henry could not have been more opposite of that moment. 

On the other side of the cafe, she saw a teenage girl craning her phone into the most ridiculous position to take a selfie that happened to include the corner she and Henry were in. She cringed, swiveling her body away from the lens. 

Because of some romantic ideal that they were something meant to be observed. 

Lizzie found herself wondering what made things romantic. She knew from her quest when things were not; questionable power dynamics, unrealistic standards, bad dialogue. But what was it she was trying to find by classifying these missteps? She clearly hadn’t known enough to spare her from the discomfort of sitting across a table with Henry, trying to figure out what was real or not. 

They spent the next few minutes paying closer attention to their coffee than each other. Yet people would go on to think that this was aspirational. It felt mindless, romance, just a tender stroke on a sensitive nerve, one that needed stimulation and wasn’t refined enough say from whom. 

Surprisingly, Henry broke her silence. 

“So what are you reading, when it’s not  _ Fifty Shades of Grey _ ?”

She set her mug down and raised her eyebrows at him. “Come with me.”

“We’re going now?”

“Now.”

  
  


She reasoned she was doing this because Gemma met him already, Daisy hadn’t. And she’d wanted him there. She had gotten into the habit of filling spaces where he wasn’t there with the idea of him, so she’d pictured him in the bookshop as often as she’d been in it. 

Henry seemed slightly awed by the precarious stacks and labyrinthine shelving. 

He let out a low whistle, impressed. 

“Come here often?”

“Yep.”

“Any advice for a first timer?”

“You won’t find anything if you’re looking for it, so just be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Used Bookstore Wisdom?”

She laughed and shook her head. “A generous way to rationalize the horrible organization. Go on.”

She’d suspected they’d lose each other quickly and regroup when ready, but she gave him more credit that he didn’t swarm her while she was browsing. There was nothing so awful as someone who could be bored in a bookshop. 

About a half hour later, Lizzie was perched on a ladder in what was assumed to be the historical section with a stack of Phillipa Gregory novels to be hidden from the public eye, for the public good. She had a habit of slipping them behind the old math textbooks, somewhere no one would find them. 

But in her hands she didn’t hold a book, but her favorite used-bookstore find, a christmas card. It was accidental, she was moving a book about the Mitford Sisters back onto the shelves and a red envelope slipped onto the floor. Creepy as it was, she always saved them when she bought books that had them tucked in the margins. It was more common than one would think. She liked the universality of these familial updates, the vague, knowing tone, the implied reader. Some even had photos, which she tucked away, too guilty to throw out. 

Henry found her there. She jumped down with a smile, re-shelving.

His arms tentatively cradled an allotment of Tennyson and Keats.

“I...thank you for bringing me here.”

She took a nervous step back. “Those aren’t in an attempt to woo me, are they?”

Talk about trashy romance.

Henry fidgeted, a little uncomfortable. “No.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I never pegged you as a poetry guy.”

He smirked, leaning the ends of the stack on one of the shelves to neaten them in his arms. 

“I mean, I don’t sit around reciting Byron, if that’s what you mean. But I like to just flip to one and think about it for a while.”

She leaned against the shelf as he worked.

“You mean you do poetry analysis for fun?”

He shook his head when he laughed. God, he could be cute. That’s what made this so hard. The real. She liked Henry. How could she go into this and not end up devastated.

“Not exactly. It’s more like it’s short, and not something you take at face value. You have to dig through poetry. It’s like a puzzle that doesn’t have a concrete shape, you just kind of build outward.”

“Wow. Good thing you’ve never read my poetry. You’ve been disillusioned by the masters. I don’t think I ever did that.”

There was a pregnant pause when he examined her face, before pulling his eyes back to the books. She liked the familiarity there. The affection. 

“I want to read yours.”

“It’s bad.”

“Is it about your angst?”

“So angsty. Angsty and horny.”

He laughed louder than before, surprised. “You just described Byron to a T.”

“Nerd.”

“I like poetry. Do I have to give up some of my manhood to say that?”

He tugged at the end of her braid, appraising the gold strands. 

“No, I mean, I’d say that’s actually pretty sexy, if you weren’t such a nerd.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple, laughing. Sure, there were people around, but it felt like a private enough thing that the flirting felt worth the risk. 

“Likewise,” he whispered. 

It felt right, to have Henry there. The rational part of her brain told her she should have started small, not her favorite place on the planet, when it came to opening up to him. But this was a partnership. And he appreciated it. So it didn’t feel like a mistake. 

Daisy approached, edging a few feet away to make sure she was only interrupting something worthy of interruption. 

“Lizzie, we have some new arrivals,” Daisy held up a bosom-heaving monstrosity. 

Henry raised his eyebrows. Lizzie’s heart dropped. 

That doubtful, rational part of her brain took over. In a moment of panic, she laughed at the cover, and turned back to Henry. 

“Can you see me like that?” 

She faked a swoon against the ladder. 

He smirked. 

She was hit with the clock strike of guilt. A strange, defensive feeling flowed through her, and just as quickly as Henry had decided to be open and charming and honest, she'd decided to close up. 

Daisy raised her eyebrows for a moment, glancing from Lizzie to Henry. 

“Oh, uh, Henry, this is my friend Daisy. We met here, actually.”

“You picked up Lizzie the other day,” he grasped her hand, almost dropping his stack of books. 

Both girls noted his memory as a positive. 

Daisy still held the romance novel a bit like she wanted to throw it across the room.

“Do you want me to ring those up?” She segued the failed joke.

Lizzie felt terrible. She hadn’t meant to leave Daisy hanging, but it didn’t feel right to tell Henry about her quest. That, of all things, seemed the most embarrassing. Besides, what kind of girl did he think he’d be dealing with if he found out? Would he get the irony, or the anthropological aspect?

She was struck by the memory of the couple outside the coffee shop. Maybe she was so disappointed by the image because she knew in her heart, Henry was not the kind of person to catch her. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So. I do not watch the White Queen. I have yet to read any books on these two. However. Tumblr gave me all the feelings over these two and their relationship and I love arranged marriage stories so here we go. If you have any background info you think I should know about them, please let me know on here or on my tumblr LyresandLasers, I'd like to learn from this.


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